Camden Prep Inc.

Camden Prep Inc. is an alternative public school serving 1,465 students in grades K-12 in Camden, New Jersey. While the school has some bright spots, such as consistently high graduation rates, it faces significant challenges around chronic absenteeism, low academic achievement, and serving a high-poverty student population.

Despite the school's high 4-year graduation rates, which range from 90.9% to 91.3% and outperform the state average of around 80%, Camden Prep Inc. struggles with extremely high chronic absenteeism rates, ranging from 14.9% to 50.4% over the past few years. This is much higher than the state average and likely contributes to the school's low standardized test scores, which fall significantly below state averages across all grade levels and subjects. For example, in 2024-2025, only 36.9% of 3rd graders at Camden Prep Inc. were proficient in ELA, compared to the state average of 44.9%, and just 3.5% of 8th graders were proficient in math, compared to the state average of 20.7%.

When compared to nearby alternative schools like Westampton Campus, Bankbridge Regional School, and the Camden-based charter schools, Camden Prep Inc. has a higher student-teacher ratio, lower spending per student, and generally weaker academic performance. This suggests the school may need to re-evaluate its resource allocation and instructional practices to better support its students, who come from a very high-poverty background, with 62.87% to 93.55% qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch over the past few years.